Monday, July 18, 2011

Do all of you know about the awesome Writer's Knowledge Base that Elizabeth Spann Craig has put together? In her words, the WKB is "a free resource for writers to find the information they need for their particular stage of the writing journey…with 9000 links to search (and more added every day.)"

Jami Gold recently interviewed Elizabeth here, and it's fascinating to read about the process Elizabeth went through to (1) realize that we as writers need a dedicated knowledge base, and (2) put one together. For free, and in her own time too!!! As she says:

"[W]riters need different information at different times. When they’re writing a first draft, they need plotting help. When writers hit a wall, they want inspirational posts. When they revise, they’d like editing tips. When they’re querying…well, you get the idea.

These writing links needed to be searchable. It was crazy for writers to have a thousand bookmarked sites—and bookmarks for information that they don’t currently even need."

I don't know about you, but just as Elizabeth says in that interview, I've collected hundreds of bookmarked posts. So I was pretty chuffed (do you use that word in the US?) to find this amazing resource, and I thought I would share it with you. Happy researching!

How about you: Do you know about the Writer's Knowledge Base? Do you use it? Are there any other writing resources you know of/use regularly that you'd like to share with us all?

Thanks for this Rach! Very helpful...btw, we don't say 'chuffed' in Canada either...I've seen it used on this site before by UK bloggers, and I wasn't sure if it was a good feeling or a bad one....it's good right? Thanks again and have a great week!

No problems at all Mike, it's an awesome database! I know you have "characters", "settings", "plot", "getting published", "random", and "popular" links, but have you thought about having a more extended "browse" function, with links we can click on to find articles about different topics? Eg, querying, agents, revising, "show not tell", critiquing, etc etc (in addition to the ones you already have)?

Also, is there any way we can narrow down search parameters to help us find particular posts (eg by year written, "search within search results", etc)?

Yeah, categorizing what's in the database is what I meant when I was talking about the "browse" function (maybe I used the wrong term, if so my apologies :)). That would be very handy - if we're querying, for example, we could click on the "querying" link and see what posts you have on querying, then choose the one we most want to read (whereas now we just get, say, 1,000+ results for querying, and we have to scroll through and search each one manually). I guess the categorizing would work best if it's used with sub-categories as well, eg query letters.

Re search within search, it wasn't exactly what I meant, though you're right, adding extra search terms at the start would do the same job :)

LOL, just had another idea - is there a way readers can click on a "recommended" button or something, which would mean that post would pop up to the top of the pile when next someone did a search for posts on that subject?

When you do a search the results are ranked starting with the best match. For example, if you search for "character" your results will be all over the place on the subject of characters. If you wanted to know more about Harry Potter characterization you might search for "character Harry Potter." Then, the results start to take a laser focus.

Does that help? Sorry if I'm being dense about what you're asking.

Are you familiar with word clouds that show you the relative frequency of words within a blog post? Seems like that would speak to the categorization aspect and maybe help with the "search within search" idea.

Recommendations. Yes, I've been wanting to do something like that. I was thinking of a Five Stars kinda thing. That or a single "Like" button would cause the recommendations to be fed into the scoring algorithm and I could show that info in the list.

You're right on target with the kinds of resources we want depending on what stage of writing we're in. I often put blinders on with my reading, too. E.g. If I'm writing in the first person or writing historical fiction, then I look for those kinds of books.

I use it and follow her helpful tweet, too. I also use some sources like http://www.aztekera.com/tools/tobeverbs.php to catch my "to be" verbs when writing. Another go to blog is Writer Unboxed.com. They have useful posts from multiple book and debut authors.

This looks like an amazing resource. I hadn't come across it before. Thank you!

I have to counter Eve up there who says Canadians don't say "chuffed." I do. But in trying to think through where I picked it up, I think it was in university. I had a school chum who said it all the time. She was Canadian, but had spent time in South Africa. Maybe she picked it up from Misha?

It's the kind of word that, in context, people know what you mean. I think we should all use it wantonly.

Rachael Harrie

I write YA Horror, Dark Fantasy, and Psychological Thrillers, and spend my day imagining evil plot twists and psychotic characters. When I'm not thinking up ways to make you squirm, you'll find me blogging up a storm (with the occasional Twitter and Facebook foray as well), planning for my next Campaign, wondering whether to make Write Hope a permanent fundraiser for charity, counting down the days to the next WriteOnCon, and diving into another round of critiques with my CPs.

I blog on every second Monday. And other times as the whim takes me :)

My WIP - DARK

Sixteen-year-old Sydney Price is blinded by the radical group Dark, who demand that she betray her scientist brother if she wants to save his life.

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